Fantasy Flight Games is proud to announce Blood and Water, the fourth Data Pack in the Red Sands Cycle for Android: Netrunner.

Everyone knows that the Big Four want control over Mars to boost their profits. But what can Mars offer that’s profitable enough to justify the enormous expenses of terraforming a barren, irradiated desert? What’s valuable enough to warrant shipping supplies across the solar system and fighting with the entrenched and steadfast Clans? Why not just stay on Earth, where it’s warm and already profitable?

The sixty new cards (three copies each of twenty different cards) in Blood and Water shed light on the agendas that the Big Four are pursuing on Mars—and the forces arrayed against them!

Same Agendas, Fewer Restraints

No matter where you are in the solar system, you’ll find Jinteki attempting to perfect the human race, NBN vying for total control of information, and Weyland working hard to mine anything they can sell. But on Mars, as the newest Agendas for each faction demonstrate,  you’ll find that the Corps take these goals much farther than they do on Earth. Away from the regulations of national governments and the incessant monitoring of citizen journalists, these corporations are able to pursue their most extreme ideas with impunity. 

For Jinteki, this involves the ultra-secret Obokata Protocol (Blood and Water, 70). Like its predecessor, the Fetal AI (Trace Amount, 32) program, the Obokata Protocol warrants the highest—and most lethal—protection Jinteki can provide. And on Mars, “No unauthorized personnel beyond this point” isn’t a request; it’s a statement of fact enforced by four net damage. If the Corp secures their server with clones from the Ben Musashi (Earth’s Scion, 54) line or a few well-armed Prisec (Blood Money, 40), the Runner may have no choice but to leave the Protocols alone, even after they glimpse those three tantalizing points. 

On Earth, NBN’s grasp on the Net gives them unparalleled control over the news and other media, but old habits and legal standards have limited their role in one of the most prominent information industries—education. On Mars, they’re looking to break into the field with their Reeducation (Blood and Water, 74) initiative. This three-point agenda gives NBN the chance to shape everyone’s thoughts by replacing the cards in their HQ with new ones from R&D. It would seem that even the most strong-willed runners and stubborn Clanspeople can’t resist all of the media all of the time. 

Meanwhile, Weyland’s approach to making money is even less subtle than usual as they engage in Meteor Mining (Blood and Water, 76). While it may sound like the “comet jockeys” engaged in meteor mining are scouring space rocks for precious minerals, they’re actually scouring asteroid belts for solid bodies that contain sufficient quantities of ice and ammonia. With the help of remote-controlled thrusters, they hurl these meteorites into specific locations on Mars. Over time, the gasses released by these impacts could make the atmosphere on the Red Planet more inhabitable for humans without protective mods. Until then, the Weyland Consortium denies any and all rumors that the casualties associated with meteor collisions could be the result of pilots targeting corporate saboteurs or Net criminals. 

Clan Agitator

To many colonists, there’s nothing objectionable about the agendas being pursued by the Big Four on Mars. More crops, more oxygen, more schools for everyone, they say. But many Martians see things differently. They remember a time before the Martian Colonial Authority (MCA). They remember when it was their food, their air, and their education—and they’re still willing to fight for it! 

Alice Merchant (Blood and Water, 61) is a Martian native who fights alongside Jarogniew Mercenaries (Blood and Water, 62) to resist the MCA and the corporate interests it serves. Long years of turmoil and conflict have made it clear that the grudges between Clans may be even more detrimental to Martian success than day-to-day corporate maleficence. But Alice knows that exposing the right corporate misdeeds could motivate the Clans into working together against a common enemy.  

Like other Anarchs, Alice is prepared to dig through the neglected files in the Corp's Archives for the evidence she needs—like proof that the Whampoa mines (Blood and Water, 79) are sacrificing Martian lives for some Earther’s bottom-line—and exploit all weaknesses she finds there. Specifically, she forces the Corp to trash a card the first time she makes a successful run on the Archives. This effectively enables her to gain an access on HQ by running Archives. More importantly, it enables her to disrupt the Corp’s plans while taking advantage of cards like Retrieval Run (Future Proof, 101). 

The War Never Ended

The MCA may have proclaimed its victory more than a decade ago, but true Martians know that the war never ended. They can still see evidence of it in the corpse-strewn battlefields that surround their homes, and they can still feel the call to arms as corporate agendas chip away at their freedoms.

The Big Four are growing more and more confident as they settle into the Red Planet to pursue their wildest agendas yet. This means it's time for the Clans to choose their path—will they band together to oppose the MCA or will they let old feuds tear them apart? The corporations say that they can bring water to Mars, but whose blood will pay for it? 

Look for Blood and Water to arrive at retailers in the first quarter of 2017!